Video games, pen&paper RPGs and other nerdery

Day 1 – Introducing myself

y name is Andrea, though online I am often known as Kadomi. I live in Germany and have all my life, though I have been to the US many many times. The name Kadomi comes from my former WoW main who I played from May 2006 until October 2011. The name itself is based on the brand of pocky I was nomming on when I named her, Mikado. I am nothing but unoriginal when I name my characters. I am continuing to use this name in other MMOs and still use it on Twitter, e.g., even though I no longer play the original orc.

I started playing MMOs in March 2005. Like for many other people, WoW was my first MMO, and I picked it up shortly after European release. For years, I was passionate and excited about the game that turned gaming into a hobby, not just a pastime, but I first started to experience WoW burnout in late 2009. I moved on to single player games, then started playing LotRO for a while. My highest level character there was a level 36 warden, before I ran out of steam somewhere in the North Downs. In early 2010 after a beta that really impressed me, I started to play Rift. Again, I petered out in the mid-30s on my rogue, even though bard and riftstalker both were really enjoyable to play. In both LotRO and Rift the quality of the mid-level questing left to be desired IMHO. I completely quit WoW and any MMOs cold turkey from May to September 2010. I played single player games instead, mostly the Assassin’s Creed series. I picked up WoW again in September, but closed my US account to renew my EU account and start from scratch on my side of the Atlantic. That lasted til December when my guild fell apart over the holidays and I switched to SWTOR. That’s my current MMO of choice. For 2012 I am also interested in Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World, though I don’t have any real expectations for either.

I consider The Burning Crusade as the best WoW expansion, the height of my gaming when I felt WoW was doing everything right. I consider WotLK the beginning of the end for me, especially when it came to the difficulty of 5-man content. From a raiding perspective, I have only done 10-mans, with the exception of a few forays into SSC and TK in TBC, and ZG in vanilla.

Over the years I have become highly critical of the ability of gamers to hype games to the highest heights and then rip them apart in the most brutal way possible. This is why I am currently very wary about the hype of Guild Wars 2 as the next ‘WoW killer’. I am also what you could consider a Bioware fangirl, and enjoy both games that the Bioware haters despise so emphatically, Dragon Age 2 and SWTOR. I will always gladly admit to them being flawed, but they’re also great fun to me because of their storylines.

As far as my preferences go gaming-wise, I enjoy highly story-driven games. I have no interest in playing games that do not have a decent storyline. Which is probably why I am the worst Civilization player in the history of the world. When it comes to MMO characters, I have always enjoyed tanks and healers the most. As Guild Wars 2 seems to be ringing in the possible end of the holy trinity, I am mostly looking forward to finding the ideal support character. I have never been a good DPS player, because I have always been a perfectionist in games and was never ever satisfied with my personal DPS performance, even if it was adequate. My own expectations always killed my enjoyment of pure DPS. Hats off to the really skilled DPS, I admire and envy you. 🙂

When I am not gaming, I read a lot, thanks to my wonderful Kindle. I am married to a fellow nerd lady, and have been since 2003. She’s American and we met online on PernMUSH. Which, yes, makes me gay, which is not a big deal here for me in Germany. We play SWTOR together as a duo, and occasionally I roleplay on her Pern-based MUSH Second Pass. I listen to music a lot, in particular any form of electro, with favorites being Depeche Mode, mesh, Rotersand, DE/Vision, etc. I also find Sophie Ellis-Bextor to be the most beautiful woman in the world, and I listen to her all the time, and the fangirl in me won’t allow anyone to say anything bad about her, so nyah! I have three cats, two tigers and a tuxedo cat. They’re all lovely and cuddly and crazy, and my life would be poorer without them in it. My life would also be poorer without the friends that I made from my years of playing MU*s and MMOs, especially the Pern and Firan people I am still in touch with, and the girls from my American WoW guild.

In my current job position, I am the web admin of a small financial company that runs several blogs, and I mostly got this job because I had WordPress experience.

I always feel like I am older than most MMO bloggers out there, but then have never been ashamed of my age. I was born in 1971, so sue me. While I can’t keep up with the young whippersnappers, I feel the middle-aged MMO player bracket is actually not a small one at all, and our voices need to be heard as well.

That’s me in a nutshell. If there are any further questions you would like to ask, I am game.

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9 Comments

I feel like I’ve learned new things about you 🙂 I definitely agree that voices from a wider range of ages is a good thing, although I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be a young whippersnapper for. Ahem.

I think the age difference is most apparent on Twitter. Especially amongst the very active WoW twitterati I feel old and crotchety. I recently talked about this with my friend @glyneth who’s my age range.

But all in all, age is overrated. My SO is actually 11 years younger than I am, and she often tells me I need to grow up at some point. 😉